What the United States and its allies fought in Vietnam was not a country or a people, but rather an ideology—namely, Communism. What the United States and its allies are fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan is not a country or a people, but rather an ideology—namely, religionism (see the definition of religionism here). Advertisements

An article on the Wall Street Journal states that our brains are built for art appreciation (“Our Brains Are Made for Enjoying Art” by Ann Lukits, Wall Street Journal, June 16, 2014). http://on.wsj.com/1slEgiQ. For some reason, this struck me as an important finding about the brain and about life.

Nelson Mandela is sometimes called “the Black Pimpernel.” This South African lawyer and tribal prince first achieved world prominence at the time of John F. Kennedy’s presidency. Mandela is one of the great fighters for liberation in the twentieth century, along with Ernesto Che Guevara, the Colombian Jesuit priest Camilo Torres Restrepo, Mohandas Gandhi, and